49 Big Talk
ceo Kenton Allen ceo Nira Park
md Matthew Justice staff 12 turnover £4.4m commissions 5 hrs commissioned 7.5 hrs tx’d 3 key shows Free Agents (C4) genre drama, comedy
The drama and comedy focused indie that’s been behind all of Simon Pegg’s programmes since Spaced, received a cash injection from BBC Worldwide in October last year in exchange for a 25% stake in the company. “The economic downturn coincided with the investment from BBC Worldwide,” says joint CEO Kenton Allen. “This helped us weather the storm and led to an intense pitching and development period, during which we worked on the funded development of three pilots, one series, one returning series and some drama commissions.” Allen adds that, over the last 12 months, while concentrating on developing new shows, “There’s definitely been a slowdown in commissions. We’ve scaled back our recruitment ambitions and rationalised our drama headcount.” Big Talk’s busy programme development period has now come to fruition with forthcoming productions including Handle with Prayer, a 6x30-minute comedy for BBC2, Young, Unemployed and Lazy, a pilot for BBC3, a hidden camera comedy called Bone Bag, the second series of Free Agents and the drama What a Carve Up for C4.

50= Raw Cut
directors Bill Rudgard, Steve Warr turnover £4.3m profits £550k commissions 5 hrs commissioned 44
hrs tx’d 32 key shows Road Wars (Sky One) Police Interceptors (Five) Disaster Eyewitness (Discovery) genre fact, fact ent
In July, Raw Cut hired The Guardian’s Westminster correspondent David Hencke to head its new current affairs unit, as part of a move to broaden the indie’s programming beyond its core blue-light docs. “Our focus now is on diversifying,” explains joint company director Steve Warr. “We’re well known for blue-light police docs and we have to explore other areas.” He says it’s quite a small leap from blue light docs to current affairs: “We’re continually dealing with the police and lawyers for the blue-light docs so are no strangers to this type of programme.” Warr adds that the current affairs unit “gets us into new markets we might not otherwise see. We do very little for C4 at present so it’s a chance to build up a relationship with them.”
Raw Cut has also earmarked entertainment and fact ent as genres it’s intending to move into. “We’ve taken on Phil Ward, who’s a fact ent and entertainment exec, so we’re hoping he’ll help us break into there. We’re working on the lighter side of factual and the heavier side of entertainment.”
50= 2am TV
md Amanda Martin executive producer Gillian McNeill staff 2 turnover £4.3m
commissions 1 hrs commissioned 6
hrs tx’d 5.2 key shows Personal Affairs
(BBC3) genre drama